


Still Alive

by orphan_account



Series: come back alive [1]
Category: Dredd (2012)
Genre: Comfort Sex, Epiphanies, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Old Friends, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Post-Movie(s), Wordless Declarations of Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-24
Updated: 2013-08-24
Packaged: 2017-12-24 12:59:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/940272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s the night after the incident at Peach Trees, the firefight of the week, maybe even the month- he finally gets back to his apartment, comes inside feeling like a deaden weight, not like it shows. He only stumbles once on the lintel, and he pauses to give it an irritated glance before stopping at the terminal. Leaning on the desk, typing out the same, familiar two words: Still alive?</p><p>He’s barely sent the message that something beeps behind him, and he whips around with gun extended faster than he breathes. Instinct, but unneeded instinct, he sees, as she moves into the dim, dull light, flashing hazily off of her hair. “I’m still alive, Dredd,” she says, her arms folded before her, her gauntlet’s interface flashing with the new message.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still Alive

It was a ritual. Every night after patrol, a message to her terminal: Still alive?

 

Every night, from her: Still alive.

 

Two words, like her: concise, informative and yet enigmatic at best. He still remembers her like she was during training: always the one for the gallows humor, jokes cracked that were tasteless at the least. Still, it was how she coped: everyone coped, in their own way. The ones that made it, of course.

 

He’s run into her a few times, since then, on the streets of Mega-City One, zipping along on her bike, pulling up beside him with a smirk tugging at the long, gristly scar that cuts her eyebrow in half and twists all the way down to her jawline. “Need a little help, Judge Dredd?” she asks him, ironically, because she does everything ironically.

 

“From you, Volkova,” he always replies, because he’s learned that the question is inconsequential, she’s going to butt in anyway. She’s a redhead, covered in freckles, with nitrogen-blue eyes. They’re her greatest weapon, she likes to tell him, can freeze a man in his tracks and entrance him long enough to get shot. It’s Scorpio, she told him once, pointing out the constellation on one rare, less-smoggy night. The eyes are a Scorpio’s greatest weapon.

 

He tends to disagree- her dead-eye and steady hand would be his first choice, or her killer talking skills. Possibly her bike driving. Anything more than some inconsequential astrology. Whatever it is, though, it keeps her alive. Every night she answers him. Still alive.

 

It’s the night after the incident at Peach Trees, the firefight of the week, maybe even the month- he finally gets back to his apartment, comes inside feeling like a deaden weight, not like it shows. He only stumbles once on the lintel, and he pauses to give it an irritated glance before stopping at the terminal. Leaning on the desk, typing out the same, familiar two words: Still alive?

 

He’s barely sent the message that something beeps behind him, and he whips around with gun extended faster than he breathes. Instinct, but unneeded instinct, he sees, as she moves into the dim, dull light, flashing hazily off of her hair. “I’m still alive, Dredd,” she says, her arms folded before her, her gauntlet’s interface flashing with the new message.

 

He sighs, holstering the weapon as she dismisses the alert. “What are you doing in here?”

 

“Looting your possessions. Not that I’ve had the chance to do so the last fifteen years…no, I just thought I’d drop by and figure out where you’re keeping all the pissed-in coffee that gives you such an impressive pouty face. I thought to myself, ‘my, I could use a few more frown lines!’” she moves up to him, attempts to look up under the visor. “God’s sakes, Dredd, everyone at headquarters knows you fought your way through at least four, mm, maybe six circles of hell today. I can’t stop by to check on an old friend?” she steps back, leans on the counter. “Come on. You took down a major drug lord today. Isn’t that worth cracking a bottle of whatever shine you’re stowing here?” she jerks her chin at one of the cabinets to her right.

 

“Friend?” he scoffs. “You’re a thorn in my side I can’t get rid of, Volkova. Don’t let anyone else tell you different.” He turns as he slides his helmet off, setting it on the shelf, rolling his neck and hissing at the ever-present strain. He starts unloading the weapons from his belt, unzipping his vest and dropping it with the rest.

 

“A thorn in your side you’ve kept around for fifteen years,” she strides up behind him, silent as a shadow, purposely making enough noise for him to know where she is. “Got to be something I’m good for. Besides the sex.” She presses her thumbs to his nape, pressing slow circles into the sore muscle there.

 

He sighs. “Volkova,” just her name; a halfhearted reprimand. It’s a sign for both of them- he’s tired, too tired to come up with a more effective counter to her constant stream of bullshit. Also, her firm massaging fingers feel really damned good on a sore neck.

 

“Come on, you can do better than that,” she murmurs, taking her hands away, causing him to turn, instinctively following the retreating relief- she reaches up and puts her hands on either bicep, stilling him as he faces her. “Maybe you’re not trying hard enough,” she says, leaning in, standing on toe to nip at his earlobe.

 

“Volkova,” he mutters, reaching down to grab a handful of her ass through the uniform undersuit. She dresses lighter than he does, favoring a martial artist approach- he’s seen her take a man down to the ground with her thighs, snap his neck that way before he ever even hits the ground. She bites at the corner of his jaw, teeth scraping stubble, and then she starts to kneel.

 

That’s their rule, no kissing, no looking and no words, really- sometimes she’ll shoot quips at him, but he doesn’t answer them. It retains some degree of normalcy in the situation, makes it a part of their routine- this stress relief, this…blowing off steam. She settles onto her knees, shoots him a look, gnawing on her lip, and goes for his belt buckle.

 

He sighs, leans on the desk behind him, grips the edge until his fingers ache. She finally opens up the snaps on his pants, tugging on the sides to lower them to the middle of his thighs. He goes commando, so does she, it’s just a given fact with all of the leather, damned tight as it is. It also makes this part a bit easier, and his hand goes to her head, steadying himself as she spits in her hand and wraps it slowly around him- he’s only half-hard then but the scrape of callouses pushes him farther along, something knotting in the bottom of his stomach. He hisses, softly, under his breath as she strokes him, slowly, teasing. That’s her way, but after what he’s been through today he’s got little patience for her usual games. “Volkova,” he mutters again, pushing lightly on her head. She shoots him a look, framed by a raised eyebrow, flicking her thumb across the tip, making his hips jump. “Impatient?”

 

“Shut up,” he mutters at her, nudging a little more deliberately at her head. This is already too much talking, for him.

 

“Mm, you expect me to help you out when you take that kind of tone?” his head rolls back and he groans, when he hears her cheeky retort. “Judges,” she sighs, “no romance.” She gives him a few more strokes before she leans forward and finally, takes him in her mouth.

 

He half-grunts, half-sighs and braces on the edge of the desk, looking up to the ceiling and squeezing his eyes shut, half-guiding her with the hand on the back of her head. Not that she needs it; she falls into their rhythm easily. After fifteen years she knows what he likes and precisely how she should give it to him, from the slow, soft suction and the occasional scrape of her teeth and the rubbing of her tongue against the throbbing vein on the underside, the grip and ease of her hand around the rest. Her mouth’s hot, wet, and eager around him; she needs this as much as he does. Was that her game, showing up where he lived just to say still alive today? Was this a simple extension of her part in their mantra?

 

“Enough, enough,” he growls, pulling her off, and she stands up and tugs at the zipper on her jumpsuit, parting it down to the navel. He works on yanking off his gloves, followed by his shirt, pushing his pants down the rest of the way. She unbuckles her belt, drops it on the ground, and peels out of her catsuit one leg at a time, shimmying her shoulders, biting her lip when she sees him looking at the jiggle of her breasts. He steps forward, cupping his hands over them and scraping thumbs across delicate points- maybe one of the only delicate places on her body left. They’re standing up straight at him, and she arches into his palms with an eloquent sigh, leaning into the crook of his neck and biting him there. He lets her go to trail his hands down her sides, stopping appreciatively on her swaying hips- he pulls her closer, grinds them briefly together, and then lets her swing back again so that he can move lower still, part her outer lips with two fingers, and test the moisture there with a third. She whimpers, only faintly, and he pushes her back towards the bed, back stepping her until her knees hit the edge of the mattress and she sits down. He kneels in front of her, hikes a leg over his shoulder, and kisses a line down the inside of her thigh until he reaches her center.

 

She’s got freckles here too, peppered all over her body like they are on her face, and they only retreat just before the soft pink of her sex, permeating a thick, musky scent that was getting into his head, intoxicating him, dizzy. “Oh God, Dredd,” she murmurs, above him, and he feels a small hand tugging at his hair.

 

He leans into her, parting his lips in the only kiss they permit, tasting her directly at the source- irrefutably salty-sweet, indescribable, incomparable with anything else he knows. He knows his stubble is raking her inner thighs red, he also knows that she loves it- from the way she’s tugging lightly on his hair, her fingers clenching, her eyes squeezing shut, that little furrow between her brows- she’s moaning, too, long, inarticulate noises that come straight out of her chest. Nothing is staged about her, and it extends to the bedroom. With her, it’s all wordless cries of enjoyment, encouragement- and finally, warning, coupled with a particularly sharp tug on his hair that meant it was time to move along.

 

Sometimes he’ll bring her off by that alone- pushing fingers into her wet cavern one by one and pumping them slowly in and out, tasting the flood of her juices when she comes. She’s always flushed and content after that, when he comes up and reclines on his side next to her- she’ll rub her thumb across his lower lip and slowly lick the taste of her off of it. And after a few moments she’ll jack him off, nice and slow. However, that’s not what either of them need tonight. So he gives her a final parting kiss and stands up, lets her scoot back to lay on the bed, and comes down over her. She sets her hands on his shoulders, runs them down his arms, though she stops short of taking his hands. She lies there on her back, gazes up at him with eyes half-hooded with desire, effectively begging him to take her then and there.

 

He does so- braces on his hands and pushes into her heat, guided by her hands. They both make choked noises on his entrance- her head rolls back, her eyes closing and her lips parting, just barely enough to show her teeth. Something spasms in his lower belly, he grunts again, shifts his stance, begins to thrust in and slowly out.

 

It’s a few moments- she’s taking it almost silently, her eyes still closed, her mouth moving silently. It always begins like this and he always wonders what it is she’s thinking about, what crosses her mind while he fucks her slowly to start, pushing her body slowly, rhythmically into the mattress. Then, suddenly, she moans softly, her head rolls back up towards him and she opens her eyes, hazy and punch-drunk. A groan rumbles up from the middle of his chest, he begins to speed his pace- she’s making small, desperate noises that are going to drive him out of his mind- there’s a wet slap every time his hips snap back into her, and she’s squeezing periodically around him, tightening his balls and quivering something in his stomach.

 

He sits up for a better angle, puts his hands on her upturned knees for better leverage, fucks her a little harder, a little faster. Sometimes when they do this she’s on top, grinding against him while he’s deep inside, bouncing up and down on his cock like the world is depending on it. She loves holding the power, grins ferally at him as he lies there and takes it from her, helpless to her will. Tonight, though, she’s pushing back at him atop her like she was born to do it, and he’s relishing in the fact that something, finally, was going the right way. He needed this, after today. Needed her.

 

Just as this thought crosses his mind, she seems to sense it; looks up at him with her half-hooded eyes, her rosy, bitten lips, a flush high on her cheekbones. He falters for a moment, and then suddenly he pushes her down, blankets her body with his own, forearms on either side of her head. His eyes close, he leans his forehead against hers and breathes, and he opens them just a moment to look at her- her hands, curled around his wrists, then moving to lace her fingers into his- his breath shudders on a note, he kisses her, lips meeting and parting in a sultry embrace, tongues staging a parody of their lower bodies- he’s still rutting into her, staying in deep, almost rubbing himself against her rather than pulling in and out. He pulls back from the kiss, gasping for air, and nuzzles her cheek open-mouthed as she whimpers, reaches down to rub the pads of her fingers across the tender bud of her clit, arching her head back and moaning. He tongues her throat, feeling her pulse thrumming there, and sucks a line of dark marks into the column of her neck. They’ll be hidden beneath her uniform and its high neck, but no one will be able to doubt that she belongs to him, to Dredd. Her breath starts to stutter like he knows, and he braces up on his elbows again, fucking her into the mattress while her cries escalate in their volume until her voice cracks on the highest note, and she starts whimpering in her mother tongue. He leans down to kiss her again, swallowing the cries into his own mouth, brows furrowing at this sudden breaking of rules, what it meant to her, for him, for them. He breaks the kiss, presses his lips gently to her cheek.

 

The floodgates break and she comes with a broken cry, her hand still moving furiously on her clit and her other squeezing his. There are many words- most in Russian, others unintelligible by her whimpering, one he recognizes- his name, Dredd. He fucks her slowly through the aftershocks, tries to make it last, but finally, he can’t hold back any longer. With an almost pained grunt, the tension rushes out of him as he releases into her- filling her up, though it’s no worry, with the subdermal implant she has to soak up any chances of conception. He stays there a moment, both of them panting, and then he slowly pulls out, trying to cause her as little pain as possible, her soft noise is minimal but it still makes him wince.

 

When he lies down beside her, she doesn’t hesitate to roll over and cling to him, tucking her head into his neck as their legs tangle together. After a moment, he wraps his arms around her in return, presses his lips to her forehead, leaves them there. Another long moment, and then she shifts, lifts her head just so, and kisses him. It’s gentler than before, just a chaste pressing of lips. He strokes his fingers through her hair, closing his eyes, sighing briefly when she drew back again and lay back by his side. He thinks he should say something, but words escape him. “Я люблю тебя,” she murmurs, into the silence, and he doesn’t know what it means, but he understands. “Me too.”

 

She smiles, chuckles and buries her nose into the side of his neck, and slowly drifts off to sleep. He holds her tightly, isn’t sure what this means for them and the foreseeable future, but whatever it is, he’s good for now.


End file.
